To live in the desert is to depend utterly on God and to live without protection. The books of Exodus and Deuteronomy tells of the testing of Israel as they made their escape from Egypt; they could not live in the desert without the direct protection of God, a fire by night and a cloud by day. To live in the desert is to be open to what is coming, yet not even John fully realized what the coming of Christ would mean. The world becomes completely open when Jesus the Messiah arrives. He is to be the Savior not just of one people, one nation, but of the whole of humanity, and humanity must have no more barriers.
How today we make ourselves able to accept Christ into the world? Jesus is the great arrival, the messenger of the Father and the message. The message is more than words; it is God coming into the world in God’s own fullness. Anyone who welcomes any human being in the name of Christ, welcomes Christ himself. Advent can be for us the season of welcome, when we consider how we will allow new people into our lives, as we prepare to celebrate the coming of Christ into our world.